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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

born in the wrong body...a question about transgenderism

149 replies

HarveySpectre · 19/05/2015 21:35

i started this in chat, but no-one replied.

Ive always taken 'born in the wrong body' to be a description of how transgendered people feel.

but ive heard and read it so many times, I am doubting my assumption

is it meant literally...do TG people believe themselves to actually have been born into the wong body??

and if so, how so?

OP posts:
Original poster
HarveySpectre · 20/05/2015 18:33

Thanks almonds for pointing me at that page. I'll have a look when I get to my laptop

I totally reject the notion of gender. Its a nonsense. The same as 'race'.

Its even more of a nonsensse when you look at other cultures. Where my husband is from, the women typically have shaved heads and the men have long braided hair. The men apply face paint and spend hours applying extravagent ornaments to themselves. Both men and women wear skirts. both cook equally. Women do hard labour, such as building, typically

If mtf were transposed into such a culture, how ewould that affect their view of themselves?/

OP posts:
Original poster
HarveySpectre · 20/05/2015 18:39

And I think to have anywhere near a useful discussion people need to stop banging on about 'gender' actually. What we are talking about is transsexuals. And using stupid stereotypes to 'evidence' it

OP posts:
heylilbunny · 20/05/2015 18:54

Tibbysmum well I am sorry if you are offended but mtf trans people frequently offend women and yet we are told we always have to accept their version of being a woman.

Holowiwi · 20/05/2015 19:07

Just a quick question (feel free to ignore if it's considered derailing) but there are so many topics in this section on transgenderism but why are F2M never discussed? Surely the OPs title allows for both m2f and f2m and how they feel in regards to being born in the wrong body?

That being said I saw this thread yesterday and thought this probably isn't the best place to ask this question. Surely you need to ask this question to people who have transitioned or currently in the process of transitioning?

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 20/05/2015 19:26

F2m is a much smaller category, and they are not engaged in very visible arguments with feminists online about male spaces and definitions of man and woman

SweetAndFullOfGrace · 20/05/2015 19:47

To me, this really sounds like a 'separate but equal' argument, which we wouldn't advocate in any other circumstances. What makes it appropriate here?

No it's not. It's recognising that the English language as an extension of culture and society doesn't have a suitable set of words for trans people. That doesn't automatically mean mtf transgender people get to co-opt an existing word and therefore existing class of people that they do not share essential characteristics with (eg a womb). I do not wish to share the definition of female because it's important for "female" to keep meaning "biologically female" for the various reasons covered by PPs. By all means come up with something else to describe the varying types of everyone who isn't female.

Original poster
HarveySpectre · 20/05/2015 19:52

And I think to have anywhere near a useful discussion people need to stop banging on about 'gender' actually. What we are talking about is transsexuals. And using stupid stereotypes to 'evidence' it

OP posts:
LassUnparalleled · 20/05/2015 20:25

Harvey Can you clarify what you mean by that post?

This site distinguishes between transexual and transgender, quite forcefully and if I were to paraphrase it very roughly - that transexuality is a real thing but transgernderism isn't. I

Is that what you mean? The site itself defines transexuals as basically have the opposite sex brain and genitals ,,which if I've picked you up correctly you don't think is a real concept. So what do you mean when you refer to transexual?
www.transsexual.org/What.html

CoteDAzur · 20/05/2015 20:34

"opposite sex brain and genitals"

Is that supposed to read "sex, brain, and genitals" or are you claiming that there is such a thing as "sex brain"?

LassUnparalleled · 20/05/2015 20:49

What I was trying to say but phone messed it up was what the site I linked to said namely

"A transsexual is a person in which the sex-related structures of the brain that define gender identity are exactly opposite the physical sex organs of the body".

"Put even more simply, a transsexual is a mind that is literally, physically, trapped in a body of the opposite sex."

I suspect you will not agree with that.

I'm trying to understand what Harvey is saying re transsexual.

LassUnparalleled · 20/05/2015 20:57

Oh and I wasn't claiming anything. I said I was paraphrasing (albeit badly ) the website linked.

CoteDAzur · 20/05/2015 21:03

Those two sentences don't follow each other.

It is entirely possible that pre-HRT and pre-op transwoman brain is different than male brain in some ways. That doesn't mean a second person is trapped in the body of the person we see in front of us. It can simply mean that there has been a hormonal imbalance at some point and the male brain did not develop properly.

Does the body really have to be mutilated to fit the mistaken self-image? Or can the self-image be aligned with the body's physical reality with a simple course of sex hormones?

I think this person's story is an interesting case in point. She thinks she is a boy as a child, then goes on to be a transman who feels 100% like a man. Then one day she starts taking oestrogen by mistake and realises that she is OK with being female now. Very conflicted about who she is now, obviously. It is an interesting read.

LassUnparalleled · 20/05/2015 21:09

You refer to a "male brain " but I often see on here posters saying there's no such thing as a male brain or a female brain.

CoteDAzur · 20/05/2015 21:13

I meant a brain where all the cells are XY.

almondcakes · 20/05/2015 21:29

Isn't what Harvey is trying to say is that she is talking about transsexuals - people with dysphoria about their sexed bodies, as opposed to transgender people as a wider group.

As in Julia Serano talks about people who are transgender but cissexual. So for example born male, identify as female or nonbinary, but are happy with their sexed body.

Harvey is asking about people 'trapped in the wrong body' - I assume she means people who are very distressed about how their body feels, its functions, other people registering their body as being a particular sex.

CoteDAzur · 20/05/2015 21:36

"transgender but cissexual. So for example born male, identify as female or nonbinary, but are happy with their sexed body."

What in the name of the sweet nectar of Gods is that even supposed to mean?

Original poster
HarveySpectre · 20/05/2015 21:42

lass my thoughts are;

Gender is a made up thing, which I don't buy into. It follows therefore, that I cant recognise transgender. I recognise that people don't conform to stereotypes

Yes transsexuals brains don't agree with their genitalia. There is no such thing as a 'brain sex' though. Its simply that psychologically the person doesn't feel they are the sex they are, as defined by their genital

And that is how sex is defined. Brains don't have mini and independent genatalia.

OP posts:
Original poster
HarveySpectre · 20/05/2015 21:45

Gender identity is not formed by sex related structure is the brain. Gender is a made up thing. It isn't even a 'thing'.

What 'sex related structure of the brain'?

OP posts:
LassUnparalleled · 20/05/2015 21:46

I'm not sure what Harvey means that is why I asked. The definition of transexual in the web site I linked seems,as far as I can tell,to describe what Harvey objects to as being a false concept - namely a mind trapped in the wrong body.

Original poster
HarveySpectre · 20/05/2015 21:51

When does the mind enter the body??

OP posts:
almondcakes · 20/05/2015 21:52

Serano makes a distinction between transgender and transsexual, and so also between cisgender and cissexual.

I think that's fairly straightforward isn't it?

Transsexual people have dysphoria about their sexed bodies, while other transgender people do not. So transgender people without dysphoria about their sexed bodies are cissexual.

LassUnparalleled · 20/05/2015 21:52

Ok thanks. Are you saying then transexuality exists but as a psychological imbalance and should be treated with therapy so that the sufferer stops thinking he isn't a man/isn't a woman?

And transgender people are what? People messing about with clothes?

CoteDAzur · 20/05/2015 21:52

"a mind trapped in the wrong body"

That is a completely nonsensical phrase. Minds don't migrate between bodies and occasionally get trapped in one. "Mind" is what we call the brain's narrative, which it generates to make sense of its environment, keep track of the past and project dangers/opportunities into the future.

CoteDAzur · 20/05/2015 21:56

"Transsexual people have dysphoria about their sexed bodies"

What is a "sexed body"?

"while other transgender people do not."

So what does transgender even mean in that context? "I am a male but I think I should be female, but I'm totally fine with my male body" - Aren't we led to believe that gender dysphoria is like mental torture, they suffer so much those transwoman, which is why we should accommodate those pour people etc? How are they OK with their male bodies, then?

LassUnparalleled · 20/05/2015 21:57

Almond no not at all clear.

And isn't the term "transgender " being used interchangeably anyway?

The children on the Louis Theroux programme were referred to as transgender not transsexual but were not happy about their bodies nor is the poster whose daughter feels she has a penis grafted on.